New Liberal senator Jim Molan is under fire for sharing inflammatory and misleading anti-Islam videos from British far-right group Britain First. Fairfax reported on Molan’s promotion of the videos via his Facebook page just hours after Molan was sworn in yesterday. The videos became the subject of controversy in November after being retweeted by United States President Donald Trump, who has since apologised. While the group has claimed the videos show Muslims committing acts of sectarian violence, at least one of the videos has since been proven to be fake. Molan shared two of Britain First’s videos in March 2017, prompting many of his Facebook followers to respond with comments such as “machine gun them down, take back the streets” and “drown the rounds in pigs blood before using them though, that'll piss em off”. A spokesperson for Molan said “the senator often posts material in order to generate debate. The sharing of any post does not indicate endorsement.”

Asbestos manufacturer James Hardie has been accused of avoiding its compensation obligations to former employees dying of asbestos-related illnesses. Yesterday’s episode of the ABC’s 7.30 profiled numerous people who claimed Hardie delayed court-ordered payments from its dedicated asbestos compensation fund until their loved ones died. The Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency told the ABC that about 4000 people die from asbestos-related illnesses each year, a number feared likely to rise as home renovations uncover asbestos materials.

The Senate select committee on the future of public interest journalism has recommended making subscriptions to reputable news outlets tax deductible, overhauling Australia’s defamation laws and reviewing national security laws that restrict reportage. The inquiry, started in May 2017 after Fairfax journalists went on strike over job cuts, presented its final report to parliament last night. The committee was weakened by the departure of founding Senators Scott Ludlam, Sam Dastyari, Jacqui Lambie and Nick Xenophon, while government committee members James Paterson and Jonathon Duniam issued brief additional comments dismissing most of the committee’s findings as “grandstanding”.

And the Philadelphia Eagles have won Super Bowl LII, beating favourites the New England Patriots 41-33 at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Stand-in Eagles quarterback Nick Foles was awarded Most Valuable Player, edging out Patriots quarterback and five-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady. The Patriots, the NFL’s most successful team in recent years and a favourite of Donald Trump, were widely expected to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the third time in four years, but were unable to close an eight-point gap in the final minutes. Philadelphians took to the streets in celebration, bringing down light poles, breaking windows on shopping thoroughfares, tipping cars and, in one case, reportedly stealing a police horse.

“Nowhere is the decisive influence of local interactions easier to see than in ants. The local is all an ant knows. A colony operates without central control, based on a network of simple interactions among ants. These are local by necessity, because an ant cannot detect anything very far away. Most ant species can’t see, and all of them rely on smell, which they do with their antennae. The important interactions are when ants touch antennae, smelling each other, or the ground, smelling chemicals deposited by other ants.” aeon

“Dressing an unfamiliar body is hard, rationalising a financial investment in a temporary wardrobe is stressful, and the fear that this temporary state could be even more temporary than it’s supposed to be – if we lose the pregnancy – is real ... pregnancy remained something to hide for decades. A bow-riddled maternity dress in the mid-’80s didn’t look a whole lot different from a bow-riddled maternity dress in the mid-’50s.” racked

“One foot in front of the other, the hulking old man trudged up the ramp to the Pontchartrain Expressway. A cold wind stiffened his face, so he bundled tighter and kept walking. His decision was made. A life full of accolades and praise meant nothing to him now. A man who was once the pride of his New Orleans hometown, his St. Augustine alma mater and his 7th Ward family and friends was undone. He was on his way to die.” the times-picayune

“It turns out it was all an elaborate ruse by Australia’s national tourism body, Tourism Australia ... The Super Bowl spot was part of a broader $27 million marketing campaign, created by ad agency Droga5, to target US tourists. It’s the group’s most expensive marketing effort since original Crocodile Dundee actor, Paul Hogan, starred in a pitch for the government agency in 1984, Tourism Australia said.” quartz

“Professor Darryl Jones is an urban ecology expert and a bird feeder. That combination is incredibly unusual in Australia ... The Brisbane-based ecologist tracked the magpies around his neighbourhood and found that they were being fed mince, salami, cheese, diced heart and even steak by local residents ... ABC Wild Oz is streaming Australia’s native animals live. Check into the feed to see what they’re up to.” abc

“Rapper Meek Mill, the incarcerated Philadelphia native – whose situation typifies problems with sentencing guidelines, criminal justice reform advocates say – has helped fuel the Eagles’ first Super Bowl appearance in 13 seasons, providing the team’s unofficial anthem. And in turn, the Eagles have bolstered Mill’s spirits while he serves his sentence for violating probation stemming from a 2008 gun and drug case. Mill is still confined to a medium-security prison in Chester, Pennsylvania. But he was with the Eagles in spirit, players said.” the undefeated

Mike Seccombe
After two High Court decisions, the fight against federal funding for religious-only school chaplains is set to end with a test case on state anti-discrimination law.You can’t pay someone to break the law, which is what the Victorian government is now doing. And they can’t say, ‘Well, the federal government is paying us to break the law.’

Kate Iselin
The Victorian Liberal Party’s state council has, ahead of this year’s election, endorsed the ‘Nordic model’ to transform sex work laws, but European experiences suggest it can have devastating consequences for workers.

Rebecca Harkins-Cross
She’s a writer whose plays have been widely lauded by critics but largely neglected by the mainstream. Now Patricia Cornelius’s work will take its place on the main stage. “It sounds so hifalutin, but my ambition was really just to be able to create great work … that I felt soared. It never entered my mind that it would happen in the mainstream.”

Annie Smithers
I came across this recipe some years ago and it has become my favourite to move on to once I’m over the ‘sweet’ quince thing. It features Persian overtones, Moroccan influences and rich flavours that are perfect as the nights get colder.

Guy Rundle
The massive expansion of the tertiary sector during the Dawkins era, and the elision of tech institutes and universities, set us off on the wild ride we are still on. Resistance by the humanities was greeted with exemplary punishment – the cheapest courses to teach, they were crowded with tens of thousands of new students and deprived of the funding to cater for them. The problem is worse in Australia than almost anywhere else. Had we a real respect for universities and what they do, the successive depredation of them would have given us a May ’68 redux by now. Instead, the machine hums on.

Paul Bongiorno
The fact is Labor senator Katy Gallagher referred herself to the High Court as a test case for “reasonable steps”. Turnbull’s attack on Shorten for gaming the system is very rich given he argued that Barnaby Joyce was eligible until the court declared otherwise. Joyce remained deputy prime minister and sat in the parliament for 74 days even though he was under a cloud. There is no real substance to the demands that the members now facing the voters again should apologise for the inconvenience and expense the byelections will cost. In all their cases, their good faith is established by their genuine efforts to comply with section 44, according to serious legal advice, which was clearly not the case with the politicians who were bundled out of the parliament last year.

Richard Ackland
This week Gadfly thinks it’s high time to unload some festering snipes and snarls. Take the Australian Press Council as a starting point. The press “regulator” is in the process of rissoling the Indigenous woman Carla McGrath as a public member of the council, on the feeble excuse that her position as deputy chair of GetUp! creates a conflict of interest. What on earth are they on about? The Press Council itself is a conflict of interest, riddled with tired hacks representing their paymasters in the media.

Even the farmers admit it is an increment – the decision by Malcolm Turnbull’s government not to ban live exports over summer, despite evidence of the risk to animals, despite footage of mass deaths and calls from vets to end the trade.The truth is, this is an industry of undue political clout. There are economic arguments against live exports, good ones. There are obvious welfare arguments, too.

Martin McKenzie-Murray
Though the unusual manner in which Aaron Cockman spoke of the alleged murderer of his children and ex-wife – his former father-in-law – was puzzling to many, psychological studies of similar crimes suggest a way to make sense of its seeming contradictions.